A lot of people, including parents and students, have the wrong idea of what academic support is.

So what is it?

Is it what you need for your child or yourself?

It’s important to know that academic support includes a number of different tutoring services and which services aren’t included.

Superprof is getting to the crux of the matter and finding out what academic support is and what other types of tutoring there are.

What Is Academic Support?

When you hear the terms academic support, you probably already have a decent idea of what it is. A private tutor sat in their student’s home across the desk from those being tutored.

Let’s get to the bottom of the different types of tutoring available. (Source: StockSnap)

This is the traditional idea we have of the discipline.

But what exactly is the definition of academic support?

Edglossary gives the following definition:

“The term academic support may refer to a wide variety of instructional methods, educational services, or school resources provided to students in the effort to help them accelerate their learning progress, catch up with their peers, meet learning standards, or generally succeed in school.”

There are two important factors that we believe also defines academic support:

The duration: Academic support can occur at regular intervals. From a few lessons over several weeks to a much longer time. The tutor could help their student over the course of several months to an entire school year.

Complementing schooling: A lot of academic support services are designed to help students who are struggling or falling behind.

This doesn’t mean that it needs to take place during the semester, you can get academic support during the school holidays. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of extra preparation.

The Origins of Academic Support

It’s difficult to talk exactly about where exactly academic support came from. For those not familiar with private academic support, you probably remember all the hours you spent studying in primary school, secondary school, college, and sixth form. Many hours of your schedule were spent dedicated to studying, revising, or doing your homework or coursework.

When a student’s struggling, there’s nothing wrong with enlisting the help of a professional tutor. (Source: kaboompics)

These hours were recommended by teachers who would (if they could) help students who were struggling. While we’re talking about the past, the same is true today.

Barring a few charities and free tutoring services at schools and universities, academic support is entirely private. That said, more and more parents are getting in touch with academic support tutors to help out. This is due to a few societal changes:

Parents are getting home from work later and later, which leaves very little time for them to help their children with their studies.

Private Education for State School Students

The success of academic support is not just down to how effective it is but also due to increasingly worried parents. With mathematics, foreign languages (French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc.), history, geography, physics, chemistry, economics, and English, there are so many subjects for parents to be worried about.

Some parents believe that there are too many subjects and children are struggling to keep up with all of them.

This means more and more parents are enlisting the help of academic support tutors to help their children keep up by providing supplemental instruction. This is why we say that academic support is private education for children at state schools.

Even if you’re hesitant, there are plenty of students who’ve benefitted from academic support. It’s helped many students to catch up with their studies. This has helped then avoid failing exams and having to resist them.

There are academic support classes for those in primary school, secondary school, sixth form, and college. They complement a child’s regular schooling. For example, a private tutor can move away from the traditional teaching a child gets in school and help them see schooling differently.

They can use different resources and tools. This freedom allows them to draw on different school subjects to help the child understand better, too.

Finally, the biggest benefit of academic support tutorials is the fact that they’re tailored to the student. In a maths class at school, the teacher has to deliver a standardised lesson for all the students. This means the class is designed for twenty-odd students.

With academic support, the private tutor plans their lesson around the person in front of them.

What is the student’s level?

How much do they understand?

What kind of personality do they have?

Do they respect authority?

Are they keen learners?

Are there certain things they struggle with?

Academic support is there to fill in the gaps.

If calculus, algebra, geometry, or trigonometry is giving you a headache, you just have to look for maths tutoring.

Academic Support: From Homework Help to Catching Up

For those who still aren’t quite sure what kind of academic support they need, keep in mind that it can include a huge range of services.

If you want to succeed, you’re going to have to study.

But what can you do when it doesn’t seem to be working?

Students can get help with their homework from a tutor anywhere in the world! (Source: StartupStockPhotos)

It could start out with some homework help. In primary school, secondary school, sixth form, and college, a lot of students seem to be drowning work. As we said earlier, a lot of parents just don’t have the time to help their children as much as they’d like.

So why not employ a private tutor to help your child?

Homework is a big and important part of the learning process. It can help them reinforce what they’ve learnt in class. A professional tutor can help them in a number of subjects throughout the year. This can help them to avoid failing exams, improving their performance, and getting good results.

Academic support is useful for helping students catch up. This is one of the most common reasons for getting academic support. When a child is falling behind at school, there are some important decisions to be made in order to stop them failing their exams and having to resit. Of course, you often have to pay for academic support. It’s unlikely that the teachers at their school will have the time to provide this level of support.

A private tutor can dedicate all their time to them. Thanks to teaching methods that are tailored to the student, the teacher can quickly help them catch up. That’s the main goal of academic support, after all.

Catching up can take place in the medium term and the long term. It can take some time and new teaching methodologies for a student to start understanding their courses. Once a learner has the necessary study skills, you’ll start seeing their performance improve in both the classroom and in their academic support tutorials.

If you or your child struggle with writing essays, you could work with an English tutor or look for writing tutors on Superprof.

Private Tutorials

It’s very easy to confuse academic support with private tutorials. They are often quite similar. However, not all tutors can offer both.

Think about the kind of private tutorials you need to get for your child. (Source: jstarj)

Put simply: academic support (either at home or via online tutoring) involves helping with homework or an assignment, revision, or helping students to catch up with one on one tutoring. It’s usually for students who are struggling in school.

Private tutoring is generally more relaxed and is for students who just want to learn something. They help the student learn new things and help the student to think of new approaches.

Academic support is tailored schooling and there’s also academic coaching. Of course, most tutors don’t expect you to be experts in the differing types of private tuition. When it comes to home tutoring, it’s fairly easy to find a tutor who can offer several different types one to one tutoring.

When it comes to academic success, there’s plenty of reasons why home tutoring is so popular. Whether a student is struggling with a bit exam or test prep, needs help with writing an essay, or wants to apply to a good college or university, tutoring is the way to go.

Don’t forget that it’s also very easy to become a tutor and start getting tutoring jobs. You can make your profile on Superprof today!